Dr. Zunyou Wu, a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, is being honored by the World Health Organization with the Nelson Mandela Award for Health Promotion. He is being recognized for his work in HIV/AIDS in China.
In addition to creating outreach programs among sex workers, he also established China’s first needle-exchange program and first large-scale opioid replacement treatment. In 2004, drug users represented half of HIV infections in China; today they comprise 1% of the infected population, thanks in large part to his efforts. The award was presented on May 27 at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.
Wu has been teaching at the Fielding School since 2009. He served as an epidemiologist or director of China’s National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention from 1997 to 2017, and is currently chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Through his work with the Chinese CDC, Wu participated in both the response to the SARS outbreak in Beijing in 2003, and research and mobilization for the COVID-19 outbreaks in Wuhan and Beijing.